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After weeks spent facing down activists in Balcombe, the energy company Cuadrilla Resources has beaten a humiliating retreat from the West Sussex village because of a planning foul-up, apparently of its own making.

The shale gas driller will leave the oil exploration site at the end of the month with the job unfinished, after withdrawing plans to extend operations for another six months.

The company blamed a “potential legal ambiguity”, fearing that it could be vulnerable to legal challenge by fracking opponents.

Cuadrilla, which had hoped to complete all the work next month, will now have to submit a new